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Rio Ferdinand believes that West Ham need to get back to promoting young players through the academy.

Ferdinand started his career at West Ham at a time when several young players came through the ranks in east London, including Frank Lampard, Michael Carrick and Joe Cole, among others.

But in recent years, Declan Rice the only player to have established himself as a West Ham regular in the past few seasons after coming through from youth level.

Grady Diangana and Jeremy Ngakia have both made their first team debuts in recent seasons, but Ferdinand believes the Hammers need to revisit a model that has served them well in the past, with the former West Ham defender speaking out about the club's recent record in the transfer market.

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“I think recruitment could have been better," he said, speaking on the BBC podcast 606 Savage Social with Robbie Savage.

"But I think many clubs are probably in that position, spending a lot of money on players who haven’t given back their worth.

“My biggest thing for West Ham is that I look back at my time there and why did I sign for West Ham?

“West Ham wasn’t a fashionable club, West Ham wasn’t the club to go to, it wasn’t the breeding ground for young players and hadn’t brought a young player through to play in the first team since probably Paul Ince.

“So there weren’t too many reasons for me to go there, but what they created there was a vision, a pathway and a story board for the young kids to say we are going to bring the academy back and invest in young kids around the local area to come in and play for the first team.